Our Next Engineering Milestone

Many posts start with a thank you and I want to start this post with an extra special thank you on behalf of the entire Windows team for all the installs and usage we are seeing of the Windows 7 Beta. We’ve had millions of installations of Windows 7 from which we are receiving telemetry, which is simply incredible. And from those who click on the “Send Feedback” button we are receiving detailed bug reports and of course many suggestions. There is simply no way we could move from Beta through Final Release of Windows 7 without this type of breadth coverage and engagement from you in the development cycle. There’s been such an incredible response, with many folks even blogging about how they have moved to using Windows 7 Beta on all their machines and have been super happy. The question we get most often is “if the Beta expires in August what will I do—I don’t want to return to my old [sic] operating system.” For a Beta release, that is quite a complement and we’re very appreciative of such a kind response.

This post is about the path from where we are today, Beta, to our RTM (Release To Manufacturing), building on the discussion of this topic that started at the PDC. This post is in no way an announcement of a ship date, change in plans, or change in our previously described process, but rather it provides additional detail and a forward looking view of the path to RTM and General Availability. The motivation for this, in addition to the high level of interest in Windows 7, is that we’re now seeing how releasing Windows is not something that Microsoft does “solo”, but rather is something that we do as one part of the overall PC ecosystem. Obviously we have a big responsibility to do our part, one we take very seriously of course. The last stages of a Windows release are a partnership across the entire ecosystem working to make sure that the incredible variety of choices you have for PCs, software, and peripherals work together to bring you a complete and satisfying Windows 7 experience.

The next milestone for the development of Windows 7 is the Release Candidate or “RC”. Historically the Release Candidate has signaled “we’re pretty close and we want people to start testing the release, especially because all the features are done.” As we have said before, with Windows 7 we chose a slightly different approach which we were clear up front about and are all now experiencing together and out in the open. The Pre-Beta from the PDC was a release where we said it was substantially API complete and even for the areas that were not in the release we detailed the APIs and experience in the sessions at the PDC. At that time we announced that the Beta test in early 2009 would be both API and feature complete, widely available, and would be the only Beta test. We continued this dialog with our hardware partners at WinHEC. We also said that many ecosystem partners including PC makers, software vendors, hardware makers will, as has been the case, continue to receive interim builds on a regular basis. This is where we stand today. We’ve released the feature complete Beta and have made it available broadly around the world (though we know folks have requested even more languages). As a development team we’re doing just what many of you do, which is choosing to run the Beta full time on many PCs at home and work (personally I have at least 9 different machines running it full time) and we’re running it on many thousands of individual’s machines inside Microsoft, and thousands of machines in our labs as well.

All the folks running the Beta are actively contributing to fixing it. We’re getting performance telemetry, application compatibility data, usage information, and details on device requirements among other areas. This data is very structured and very actionable. We have very high-bandwidth relationships with partners and good tools to help each other to deliver a great experience. One thing you might be seeing is that hardware and software vendors might be trying out updated drivers / software enhanced for Windows 7. For example, many of the anti-virus vendors already have released compatibility packs or updates that are automatically applied to your running installation. You might notice, for example, that many GPU chipsets are being recognized and Windows 7 downloads the updated WDDM 1.1 drivers. While the Windows Vista drivers work as expected, the new 1.1 drivers provide enhanced performance and a reduced memory footprint, which can make a big difference on 1GB shared memory machines. You might insert a device and receive a recently updated version of a driver as I did for a Logitech QuickCam. Another example some of you might have seen is that the Beta requires a an updated version of Skype software currently in testing. When you go to install the old version you get an error message and then the problem and solutions user interface kicks in and you are redirected to the Beta site. This type of error handling is deployed in real time as we learn more and as the ecosystem builds out support. It is only because of our partnerships across the ecosystem that such efforts are possible, even during the Beta.

Of course, it is worth reiterating that our design point is that devices and software that work on Windows Vista and are still supported by the manufacturer will work on Windows 7 with the same software. There are classes of software and devices that are Windows-version specific for a variety of reasons, as we have talked about, and we continue to work together to deliver great solutions for Windows 7. The ability to provide people the vast array of choices and the openness of the Windows platform make all of this a massive undertaking. We continue to work to improve this while also making sure we provide the opportunities for choice and differentiation that are critical to the health and variety of the overall ecosystem. This data and the work we’re doing together with partners is the critical work going on now to reach the Release Candidate phase.

We’re also looking carefully at all the quality metrics we gather during the Beta. We investigate crashes, hangs, app compat issues, and also real-world performance of key scenarios. A very significant portion of our effort from Beta to RC is focused on exclusively on quality and performance. We want to fix bugs experienced by customers in real usage as well as our broad base of test suites and automation. A key part of this work is to fix the bugs that people really encounter and we do so by focusing our efforts on the data we receive to drive the ordering and priority of which bugs to fix. As Internet Explorer has moved to Release Candidate, we’ve seen this at work and also read about it on IE Blog.

Of course the other work we’re doing is refining the final product based on all the real-world usage and feedback. We’ve received a lot of verbatim feedback regarding the user experience—whether that is default settings, keyboard shortcuts, or desired options to name a few things. Needless to say just working through, structuring, and “tallying” this feedback is a massive undertaking and we have folks dedicated to doing just that. At the peak we were receiving one “Send Feedback” note every 15 seconds! As we’ve talked about in this blog, we receive a lot of feedback where we must weigh the opinions we receive because we hear from all sides of an issue—that’s to be expected and really the core design challenge. We also receive feedback where we thought something was straight forward or would work fine, but in practice needed some tuning and refinement. Over the next weeks we’ll be blogging about some of these specific changes to the product. These changes are part of the process and part of the time we have scheduled between Beta and RC.

So right now, every day we are researching issues, resolving them, and making sure those resolutions did not cause regressions (in performance, behavior, compatibility, or reliability). The path to Release Candidate is all about getting the product to a known and shippable state both from an internal and external (Beta usage and partner ecosystem readiness) standpoint.

We will then provide the Release Candidate as a refresh for the Beta. We expect, based on our experience with the Beta, a broad set of folks to be pretty interested in trying it out.

With the RC, this process of feedback based on telemetry then repeats itself. However at this milestone we will be very selective about what changes we make between the Release Candidate and the final product, and very clear in communicating them. We will act on the most critical issues. The point of the Release Candidate is to make sure everyone is ready for the release and that there is time between the Release Candidate and our release to PC makers and manufacturing to validate all the work that has gone on since the pre-Beta. Again, we expect very few changes to the code. We often “joke” that this is the point of lowest productivity for the development team because we all come to work focused on the product but we write almost no code. That’s the way it has to be—the ship is on the launch pad and all the tools are put away in the toolbox to be used only in case of the most critical issues.

As stated up front, this is a partnership and the main thing going on during this phase of the project is really about ecosystem readiness. PC makers, software vendors, hardware makers all have their own lead times. The time to prepare new products, new configurations, software updates, and all the collateral that goes with that means that Windows 7 cannot hit the streets (so to speak) until everyone has time to be ready together. Think of all those web sites, download pages, how-to articles, training materials, and peripheral packages that need to be created—this takes time and knowing that the Release Candidate is the final code that we’re all testing out in the open is reassuring for the ecosystem. Our goal is that by being deliberate, predictable, and reliable, the full PC experience is available to customers.

We also continue to build out our compatibility lists, starting with logo products, so that our http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility site is a good resource for people starting with availability. All of these come together with the PC makers creating complete “images” of Windows 7 PCs, including the full software, hardware, and driver loads. This is sort of a rehearsal for the next steps.

At that point the product is ready for release and that’s just what we will do. We might even follow that up with a bit of a celebration!

There’s one extra step which is what we call General Availability or GA. This step is really the time it takes literally to “fill the channel” with Windows PCs that are pre-loaded with Windows 7 and stock the stores (online or in-person) with software. We know many folks would like us to make the RTM software available right away for download, but this release will follow our more established pattern. GA also allows us time to complete the localization and ready Windows for a truly worldwide delivery in a relatively small window of time, a smaller window for Windows 7 than any previous release. It is worth noting that the Release Candidate will continue to function long enough so no one should worry and everyone should feel free to keep running the Release Candidate.

So to summarize briefly:

Pre-Beta – This release at the PDC introduced the developer community to Windows 7 and represents the platform complete release and disclosure of the features.

Beta – This release provided a couple of million folks the opportunity to use feature complete Windows 7 while also providing the telemetry and feedback necessary for us to validate the quality, reliability, compatibility, and experience of Windows 7. As we said, we are working with our partners across the ecosystem to make sure that testing and validation and development of Windows 7-based products begins to enter final phases as we move through the Beta.

Release Candidate (RC) – This release will be Windows 7 as we intend to ship it. We will continue to listen to feedback and telemetry with the focus on addressing only the most critical issues that arise. We will be very clear in communicating any changes that have a visible impact on the product. This release allows the whole ecosystem to reach a known state together and make sure that we are all ready together for the Release to Manufacturing. Once we get to RC, the whole ecosystem is in “dress rehearsal” mode for the next steps.

Release to Manufacturing (RTM) – This release is the final Windows 7 as we intend to make available to PC makers and for retail and volume license products.

General Availability (GA) – This is a business milestone and represents when you can buy Windows 7 pre-installed on PCs or as full packaged product.

The obvious question is that we know the Pre-Beta was October 28, 2008, and the Beta was January 7th, so when is the Release Candidate and RTM? The answer is forthcoming. We are currently evaluating the feedback and telemetry and working to develop a robust schedule that gets us the right level of quality in a predictable manner. Believe me, we know many people want to know more specifics. We’re on a good path and we’re making progress. We are taking a quality-based approach to completing the product and won’t be driven by imposed deadlines. We have internal metrics and milestones and our partners continue to get builds routinely so even when we reach RC, we are doing so together as partners. And it relies, rather significantly, on all of you testing the Beta and our partners who are helping us get to the finish line together.

Shipping Windows, as we hoped this shows, is really an industry-wide partnership. As we talked about in our first post, we’re promising to deliver the best release of Windows we possibly can and that’s our goal. Together, and with a little bit more patience, we’ll achieve that goal.

We continue to be humbled by the response to Windows 7 and are heads down on delivering a product that continues to meet your needs and the needs of our whole industry.

What I’m hoping to see in Windows 7 by the time it’s released is an improved installer.

We should be able to customize our partions a bit more and be able to choose what we want on them. You could have a partition for programs, profile data, and even a small hidden one that stores your page file. I and many other advanced users would appreciate this as partitions can give you the benefit of file security and less fragmentation.

I think it should also have things like drive mapping and the ability to create symbolic links.

Oh, Steven, can you push Intel to make WDDM1.1 driver for 945GM? They’ve decided to abandon dozens millions of netbooks with that chipset in order to sell newer ones, but it will result in poorly performing Win7 and Microsoft blame and hate; why does that happen again?

While everyone wants Microsoft to rush with the release of Windows 7, its good to see that MS is not succumbing to the pressure. Take your time and give us a great end product … and from the likes of what we are seeing here, I’d say we on to something really good !

There’s one fundamental problem here. Thats the assertion that Windows 7 as-is is ‘feature complete’. It really shouldn’t be. We are asked not 3 or 4 months ago what we’d like to see in this OS. And clearly, whatever suggestions were made had no time to be incorporated. Clearly, those requests were a fraud: we were being asked to make ‘tinkering’ requests, but the implication was we were defining broader needs. Once again, you get the feeling of a ‘halfway done’ update, that care hasn’t been taken to define a new way of doing things, with too much legacy stuff still in there. Take for example Device Stage: fine, if the manufacturer supports it, but what if they don’t? There’s still zillions of Control Panel applets, confusing overlap, and general lack of transition of old forms to new forms. Nowehere is that starker than with HomeGroup. Works fine when you connect a bunch of Win7 PCs together, but what if you’ve got Vista or XP machines and aren’t going to change them (note, no upgrade path from XP!!)? There’s nothing that talks about their participation in HomeGroup, no promise of new compatibility drivers, nothing. They’re just shut out. And if MS do the research, they’ll find out that every home/business in the US has this mixed bag od multi-age, multi-version hardware that is still being used. This should have been one of the abiding messages from the Vista failure: people in the ‘ecosystem’ running with their own agendas which don’t mesh with those of end users or businesses. We expect code to work and bugs to be quashed; that’s baseline. The bigger issue is what happens when I plug in old hardware that isn’t directly supported? How do I move my iTunes library to my new machine? What we’ve got here is a re-tooling of Vista, but basically, its got all the same shortcomings and failures of concept that Vista had, just papered over and executed slightly better. For those already on Vista it is probably a worthwhile upgrade, and it’ll probably be OK with new hardware and on new PCs. It doesn’t fundamentally address netbook PCs (low capability machines); a very small percentage of people will make use of Touch features because their hardware doesn’t support it (and I’ll bet any money you like, some existing hardware already out there utilizing touch will somehow also not be supported). I won’t magically get proper support for my 3 year old multi-function printer/copier/fax. Will we ever get working Cisco VPN software? Will that ever be 64-bit? Will profiles be made available for older games so they get properly recognized in Games Explorer? Will games makers actually use the updater functionality? (e.g. Steam games or those with custom updaters, which most have). Answers are probably NO to all the above. And therein lies MS’s problem – they’re now in damage limitation mode for all the things they didn’t address, instead of asking why they didn’t address them in the first place. They’re into minor fixes and finding workarounds. MS, will deliver what Win 7 is defined as today. But, you still won’t have given us what we wanted/needed.

Although I think it is a clear step above Vista, I’ve got a list of issues with Windows 7 after serious testing.

I like Windows 7 but I have some concerns that I’d like addressed before final release

First thing – EVERYONE I spoke to even at the MS booth at CES said they want the UP FOLDER back in explorer – yes there are other ways to go back one folder but the up folder was convenient.

Classic start menu – not an option – classic start menu makes it easier to support clients if they have key components such as network properties and my computer on the desktop. I’m not saying it should be the default but why not make it an option as it was in Windows XP and Vista? I realize you can put some icons on the desktop (not IE) using personalize.

Media Center won’t let you click on album art cover once a song is already playing to play the new song from the album art cover. Seems only logical.

Search works well but it would be great if the search in the start menu had a drop down just like run has in the start menu so you can repeat a search from your search history.

Aero interface stops working without message so flip 3d stops with alt-tab – using the troubleshooting fix sometimes solves it by enabling desktop manager – sometimes it can’t – how do you manually enable Windows desktop manager – personalize desktop works but nothing to control the aero interface

Since most current receivers and other media streaming capable devices will support .flac file playback, it seems a shame not to use the native media player in windows as a media streaming server – instead because windows does not natively support flac playback, we have to look at alternative hardware streaming solutions or mediaplayers similar to windows media player but with flac support such as tversity or Twonky or Nero

Winver does not tell you if you are running 64 or 32 bit – computer properties would be improved if 64 or 32 bit was listed in the top section. It never states if you are installing the 32 or 64 bit version during installation.

It would be nice if it was easy to see what version and build of windows you were running by going to computer properties or by running winver – currently it tells you Windows Version 6.1 – Build 70000 – it doesn’t say 7000 x64 081212-1400

During Install if you attempt to install with a brand new drive it won’t install until you format the drive and reboot.

There is no desktop icon for IE – this was very handy for clear items and change settings etc before going into IE.

Do something with the 200 MB partion in disk manager so it is clear that it is a restore point or whatever – change the color of it, just make it more clearly defined.

I really hope you give yourself time to examine the bugs we send and consider the suggestions we make. I know there’s always not enough time to implement/fix everything but bear in mind we prefer having a stable, reliable, feature-rich system over a sooner shipping date 🙂

burgesjl; I find it runs very good on my wifes Dell Mini 9 netbook. It runs good on a 5-6 year old laptop. It runs good on my kids low end 5 year old desktop. So it DOES run good on low capability machines. My kids PC is using a ten-twelve year old laser printer that works also. It works on my work laptop, including the touchscreen. I could go on but the point, burgesjl, is that you obviously are going on bad assumptions instead of experience. MS delivered exactly what I wanted/needed.

Since the blog specifically points anti-virus vendors already having released updates for Windows 7, I have to point out that Microsoft OneCare still doesn’t run on Windows 7. There is not even a mention of any plans. This might not fall under Windows 7, however as a OneCare and Windows customer, I am punished for using OneCare.

I upgraded my Vista desktop to Windows 7 smoothly, only to find out that Onecare anti-virus does not work. Had to back up my data and reinstall Vista. Not a pleasant experience. My fault for not checking in before and assuming Microsoft products play well together.

There is a feature that I would like added to the double click response to a running taskbar icon. Right now one click to a running program will minimize/restore the program if there is only one instance, and will open/close the thumbnail preview if there is more then one. This makes sense, but I would like the minimize/restore functions moved to a double click in this case, and right now a double click does nothing so it’s just waiting for a good function. So in short, I would like a double click to a program’s taskbar icon to minimize/restore all of it’s windows when there is more the one instance of the program running. In the case that one of the program’s windows is open and another is minimized, I would like the double click to minimize all of the program windows, so the only time a double click would restore windows is when they were all in a minimized state to start.

This would really help my work flow. Having no simple way to minimize all of a program’s windows leaves a really big functionality gap in the window management area. Thanks much for listening.

I think this one is a keeper. Loads faster than Vista, runs faster than Vista, and isn’t a resource hog like Vista. You took all the best parts of Vista, revamped the worst parts, and gave everything a new coat of paint. I look forward to the RC and the final version–although a free or discounted upgrade from Vista would be cool.

Running W7 at home is great, but at work, it sucks. Some applications require IE6. Other applications are not compatible with Vista and their suppliers are out of business: there is no way to upgrade. Even if we were willing to pay (what for, exactly?)

W7 won’t be accepted in the corporate environment without more compatibility.

The problem in the UAC is realy a flaw. Specialy because the UAC’s behavior should not be a "Windows setting", it should be a "Security setting" and if you don’t have that kind then it’s better rebranded as a "Computer setting" even if it’s not.

As noted, it could be solved by setting the UAC to always prompt ( Vista style ) but this imply user’s intervencion, wich we know its not going to happen and the only thing malware writers has to do to upgrade to W7 is to remember disable the UAC first.

The answers provided by Microsoft by now has told me that the development team is not involved in this, but we like to know your stand in this issue.

So far, Win7 made a very good impression on me. It works much faster than Vista, all the Vista drivers worked for me so far on my laptop and only a few components were not supported on my 7 year old desktop, simply because the manufacter doesn’t support Vista drivers so there won’t be plans for win7 either…

I had some weird issues but all of them seem to be solved by now, so i’m running win7 as my main OS and will be more than happy to buy a license when win7 will be released, if the performance stays the same.

As for old hardware compatibility, why are so many people expecting a new OS to work on a dinosaur PC? I do not, and i accept it. winXP does a good job on those old PCs, so why put so many legacy drivers into win7, especially when they all will be wasting space on your HDD, since the installation routine copies all files from the DVD, Vista style?

Same for old, incompatible software. How old must it be to be incompatible with vista/se7en? win95 era? -_- All programs from win2k/xp era i use work fine with vista/se7en. If you want to use those old programs, use the OS that supports it or get an alternative. I know i’m oversimplifying this and it might be not that easy in corporate environment, but hey, if people finally stop clinging to old stuff we will be able to progress faster.

Windows 7 as it stands now is a "feature complete Beta"? No desktop background RSS feeds? Why did you even include a "Send Feedback" link? When is the right time to send suggestions? Why did I write all the comments to this blog if Win7 is already feature complete? Why did you ask for suggestions?

Windows development always (read 2000, Vista and 7) felt like this for me:

1. Rumours

2. MSFT: "We are working on it"

3. MSFT: "Beta, give us suggestions"

4. Me: "Wow looks great. Now if they would only change this and that…"

I would like to hear updates on the number of Windows 7 sku’s that will be released.

Personally I still think the Vista model is flawed. There should be a max of 3 versions. Business, Home, Portable. I think you would be better off with just 1, and that one have the ability to run in a low resource mode for the netbooks.

Also I would like to see you all come up with a home pack answer. Apple is really kicking MS on this one.

On the business front – when does the beta start for the workstation / business sku?

The windows team talked a lot about video driver that could use the CPU to use aero (to use for example inside VM) so did you guys let that go away?

wtroost> That’s why microsoft is pushing MED-V (which can run apps on virtual pc without the user noticing it, or using APP-V (formely softgrid)). I suggest you visit http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization

d_e> Indeed, this post appear to indicate that our feedback on idea/what to add is meaningless to them, it reminds me of a blog post when a dev @ msft had a great idea and his manager told him "if the idea really was that great one of our lead architects would have thought of it by now".

This is the first time in Windows history that they will finally ship a NEW version of windows that is faster than the last one ! Let me just say this was about time … thanks msft for not eating out new processing power this time around, much appreciated and please continue on that model.

I will say few additional words: people are saying, that 7 seems to be better than previous one (Vista). Almost nobody speak, that it’s faster, smaller, etc. than XP.

In my opinion: it can show, how wrong product was Vista (and it would be really fair to give free upgrade for them) and it can show, that technologies (forced by business and other targets) implemented in 6.x made it more bloated than 5.x (because I don’t believe, that Microsoft has got so wrong programmers now).

How it will continue ? Opening MSN Mobile Music service gives a lot for thinking…

I have loaded Windows 7 on a few customer machines and They are just so pleased with the over all effectiveness of the Operating System, I can now say that the Beta is worthy of all my praise!

What tops it off is that I have converted a Mac user to Windows 7, they actually went and purchased a PC after paying the big bucks for a Mac, this is in my view proof that Windows is simpler and more cost effective than anything Apple can do

This was Microsoft’s official response as posted by Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows.

•This is not a vulnerability. The intent of the default configuration of UAC is that users don’t get prompted when making changes to Windows settings. This includes changing the UAC prompting level.

•Microsoft has received a great deal of usability feedback on UAC prompting behavior in UAC, and has made changes in accordance with user feedback.

•UAC is a feature designed to enable users to run software at user (non-admin) rights, something we refer to as Standard User. Running software as standard user improves security reduces TCO.

•The only way this could be changed without the user’s knowledge is by malicious code already running on the box.

•In order for malicious code to have gotten on to the box, something else has already been breached (or the user has explicitly consented).

I’m sorry but I seriously believe this is the wrong approach. I’m sure that cracker’s, hacker’s, code writer’s, and virus writer’s are now trying to figure out since the proof of concept is on the web. Before you start seriously discussing Release Candidate, this needs to be discussed.

Considering how much people have worked on Windows 7, testers using Pre-Beta builds, testers using Windows 7 Beta, I find that really disappointing you’d leave such a simple backdoor open to attack.

I would hope you guys would STRONGLY and URGENTLY to update Windows 7 with a better defense against VB script compromise. Some sort of update or additional defense here is needed and I URGENTLY insist that you guys look at this. Please do not dismiss this so easily!!!!!!!

Also, I also agree with others that the multi-SKU’S model of Windows Vista, lead to its unpopularity. I believe One public version, with the multi-SKU’s integreated into the product like Vista is good. However, you guys should program the Product Keys to allow you to switch to different versions with the same key.

You’ve guys have done one hell of a job. Just find a amicable solution to the VB script and give users some added flexability. Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak out and add to the product.

I hope that it will be a big step from the Beta to the RC. I do not necessarily share all the enthusiasm many people express about the Beta. Strangely, in my experience as far as reliability is concerned the Beta was a step back in many ways compared to the Pre-Beta releases. Here some problems I have with the Beta that I didn’t had with earlier builds:

1. Explorer Service doesn’t load after waking the pc up from sleep mode or after boot up. Even task manager doesn’t work. I only see my wallpaper (no Taskbar) and have to reset the pc.

2. Explorer doesn’t find its content. The navigation pane is trying to load the folders but it doesn’t succeed.

3. Random crashes of Internet Explorer.

4. Random no-response problems with Windows Media Player (I can’t even stop the process and have to reboot).

These are just the errors. In my opinion many parts of the Beta need work like for example the preview pane in Explorer.

And I hope that there will also be some cosmetic changes. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, but I personally don’t like the style of Seven. This may not seem crucial but for some parts of the computer buyers product lust is an important element.

Glad to hear Win7 is proceeding nicely towards an RC. Will beta users get that as a Windows Update or will we have to download it as a service pack or something?

I have been using the beta in anger on my main machine for 2 weeks running the 64bit version. Decided after runing it on my old Athlon 64 test box that it ran so well I would chance it on the main box (Dell Optiplex i960).

VERY IMPRESSED….

Only issue was my Soundblaster Audigy Fatal1ty sound card which loaded OK from the original Vista disks but wouldn’t activate the rear pair of speakers (NOT WINDOWS FAULT as the playback devices panel would play through the rear speakers, it was just the Creative software wouldn’t expose that to Media Player.

The Creative Console that would normally allow you to turn on 5.1 speakers kept crashing and when installing more recent drivers it kept complaining that there was no Soundblaster device on the system. In the end I discovered Creative have a beta driver, downloaded that and now Win7 sounds as good if not better than Vista!

One thing that I am surprised with is the new task bar, at first I couldn’t see the point, but now using it for a couple of weeks doing real work has shown what a great time saver it can be when you use Aero Peek. I find I do want to switch quickly between coding and reading specs, in the past I would have used ALT+TAB which is OK when you have 2 or 3 Windows open but I often have 20 or more open and ALT Tabbing starts to become a ball-ache especially when the one you want is at the end of the long list. Now I just peek Word read the next bit and return to what I was coding. ACE!

The only thing I do have a slight problem with the new taskbar is I sometimes do no realise which apps are open. I have to do work for a large corporate client who is still using Office 2003 and SQL Server 2000 and I have to run the same versions on Win7 so that I stay compatible with them.

The Enterprise Manager (EM) will run OK even though both Vista and Win7 point out that it isn’t supported when you install the client tools. I know I could run in a VM but I’d rather not as you loose a lot of the Win7 features like aero peek.

The issue is that when you pin the application to the task bar it uses an icon that looks like a window with a red toolbox in front of it. When you click that and start a new EM session it starts a fresh taskbar icon which looks like the old EM icon.

I haven’t reported this via the normal mechanism as it isn’t a supported application, but I have since noted other odd behaviours like this where for instance I am running Outlook 2003 which uses Word as its Email editor and when you start a new email it associates itself with Word rather than Outlook’s icon which has caught me out a few times.

Other than that though, the improved speed of starting up and shutting down is brilliant. The whole system feels more agile, possibly down to less services loaded and better graphics handling of the UI.

Keep up the good work, keep it agile and fast, it’s going to be a winner!!

1. many problems and ideas (how to improve situation) described even on this forum were simply ignored

2. Windows 7 is going to RC, although in fact has got the same requirements to Vista and when you will look into unofficial benchmarks (put against EULA into net), you will see, that real system performance is practically the same to Vista. I agree, that system seems to be faster in many places, but it’s faster than Vista, not than XP. You still have many services and RAM usage, you still can get without any problems 100% CPU usage on plain system (have seen by me on VMWare)

If this current beta is indeed feature complete, does this mean there won’t be any changes in the disk management options, and we are finally offered the possibillity to boot from a (software) raid 1 and use raid 5?

i allways understood that the decision to exclude this from previous windows versions was an marketing decision.

This week in class I had the problem I was talking in one of my previous class: When you select hibernate/shutdown it won’t shut off if there’s program running, it simply pop a list of all the program running asking you if you really wanna close them :S

I’m repeating myself but: I want the computer to shutdown/hibernate NO MATTER WHAT inside 2min or so when placed in my backpack. (after closing the top or pressing the hibernate button)

Something new: I read about booting on a VHD and I think it sould be made much simpler, I really would like to have a big VHD with a windows configure to run games, optimized with few services/programs, but right now it’s pretty complicated to "simply" do that.

When you over and icon of an multi-window application there’s still the 1 sec delay for showing previews and it’s very, very annoying especially in windows messenge, the worst experience ever I have ever had with this application.

When you right click a "program" icon.. or a shortcut to a program, you should have and "uninstall" command available. Like when you delete the shortcut, it would be cool to have the ability to uninstall it, without having to go to control panel, etc.

I also have random freezes in Media Center…

But, I have loved and used VISTA since BETA and love 7 even more… using it on all my machines!!!! Excellent job!!

I’m looking forward to Windows 8 or 9. Perhaps by then Microsoft will allow the same amount of customization as you had in XP and 2000. I analogize Windows 7 to IE 8 you gave back about 1/3 of the ability to truly customize the UI and your pounding your chest like this is a awesome new feature.

Lets account, IE 6 and Windows XP very customizable, skin-able adaptable. Vista and IE 7 is have it Microsoft’s way or go away. Now IE 8 and Windows 7, it’s, "Hey we listened you can change the colors, ooh look at the pretty colors, look wow you can change the size of the search bar. ooh, wow, ah."

I’m not a Microsoft hater, but I just want the respect, that I am intelligent enough to know what works for me, I don’t want Microsoft to tell me, just give me the options so I can choose for my self. This will more than likely be deleted by a Moderator, they’ve done it before. Again I’m not five years old, please don’t treat me like a child, I’m old enough to choose for my self and to understand and except the responsibilities for my actions….

Windows 7 explorer does crash too often. The Random crashes in IE 8 and WMP does happen way too often. The hardware and memory footprint is still too much like Windows Vista. I think it needs to be dialed back further. Benchmark wise, it has to perform better.

In my opnion, Windows 7 needs a Beta 2 or a Beta Refresh. Hopefully, a Beta 2 or a Beta Refresh will be given strong consideration.

I think Windows 7 is about 70% ready. However, further hardware demand reduction is needed. Greater stability is needed. Benchmark testing is needed and tweaks to hold up to the competition.

First , i use win7 on my machine and works great , good job, but….why support for doc and xls are still not included in Windows, only rtf, odt ? i should be able to see doc files and xls files,without any other 3rd programs, especialy now when the Office Team is part of windows team…and 2nd try to disable Escape key from close highlight window(s), eg.( when i dload something from IE and i accidently hit Escape key will close dload window without any warning and approve mode)…

I respect your opinion, but I agree, that Win 7 build 7000 needs still a lot of work – I had also many crashes and various problems (part of dumps were sent automagically to MS). This is not problem of drivers.

MS could have much easier life, when core of system (used for running processes & managing devices) will be separated from user applications (explorer/www browser/etc.) and when user applications will be more separated from each other. It would improve a lot security, stability, etc. and we will not have a need of running various anti(spyware/virus/etc.) software then.

For now we have mix (where additionally many parts are totally new) and because of it we will have what we have.

With good core MS could think about such revolution features like assigning network interfaces/bandwidth or max. CPU usage for each process….

If MS teams are afraid of making bigger changes, let’s make something like Windows NextGeneration (I quess, 50 programmers could be enough for it) for try (paraller with main Windows line).

Do you want ideas for this Windows NG ? I can give them even for free (yeah, I’m working in IT since longer time and I can give more technical help). And believe me or not: it will be smaller, faster and more secure and will be able to run majority of win32 apps. I could even buy bottle of wine, if it will be different 😉

You can say of course say in this moment, that this is wrong. But once again: long time ago in Intel somebody allowed for making Pentium M this way. The same with some other revolution things in other companies. For now Windows is collapsing and needs fresh view/blood.

I respect your opinion, but I agree, that Win 7 build 7000 needs still a lot of work – I had also many crashes and various problems (part of dumps were sent automagically to MS). This is not problem of drivers.

MS could have much easier life, when core of system (used for running processes & managing devices) will be separated from user applications (explorer/www browser/etc.) and when user applications will be more separated from each other. It would improve a lot security, stability, etc. and we will not have a need of running various anti(spyware/virus/etc.) software then.

For now we have mix (where additionally many parts are totally new) and because of it we will have what we have.

With good core MS could think about such revolution features like assigning network interfaces/bandwidth or max. CPU usage for each process….

If MS teams are afraid of making bigger changes, let’s make something like Windows NextGeneration (I quess, 50 programmers could be enough for it) for try (paraller with main Windows line).

Do you want ideas for this Windows NG ? I can give them even for free (yeah, I’m working in IT since longer time and I can give more technical help). And believe me or not: it will be smaller, faster and more secure and will be able to run majority of win32 apps. I could even buy bottle of wine, if it will be different 😉

You can say of course in this moment, that this is wrong idea. But once again: long time ago in Intel somebody allowed for making Pentium M this way. The same with some other revolution things in other companies. For now Windows is collapsing and needs fresh view/blood.

5) Win 7 Indexing (I think) messess up P2P software, like uTorrent, making it NOT save (write) the file. The only way to get it to work is to have it on a drive that isn’t indexed. I think Win 7 is trying to index it for the library and maybe read the first part of the video while it is writing the file.

6) Took me forever to figure out that I did truly install the 64bit version. Doesn’t say it anywhere.

7) Need the "Up Directory" button in Explorer

8) Microsoft should have included support for mounting ISO’s in Windows 7. Looking for a ISO mount software is what caused me to have to use System Restore.

Other than that I installed Vista RAID driver and my drives seem to be working.

(more detail about installation)

I had the same problem with 64 bit version taking a long time to install. I was installing on brand new hard disks and have no intention of dual booting. The installation screens seem to take about 10 minutes each. I also have SATA drives and IDE, so if it is the SATA hopefully it is fixed. The SATA I’m actually doing RAID so installed the Vista version of the RAID drivers and Win 7 picked it up fine (just took a long time to get to). Anyways my point is that 64 bit installation seems to take forever when it shouldn’t.

I don’t have an ID to send feedback so I’ll try here. The tooltip shell extension seems to be broken in that it truncates the text after the first tab character (not unicode). Works fine in all previous versions of windows. Other than that, Windows 7 is looking like a fantastic product!

Steven and Team have very difficult task and need to fight with time/external opinions/corporation procedures/limits and other things. They work hard, but it doesn’t change fact, that even RC can be far away from Windows 5.x in various aspects (from engineer point of view). Sorry, but everything up to this moment confirms it…

It’s very strange for me, that there’s not going to be corporate launch before the general availability date, like it was with Vista. In such a way, I think many corporations could start evaluating the software before it’s even available on the shelves.

Also, I couldn’t understand from your post, which of the mentioned timeframes is going to be devoted for OEMs, that they start prebuilding the machines with the RTM software version, and have their final problems solved together with Microsoft, just before the general availability. I think such a period is must.

@Mantvydas — We have been working with many enterprise customers throughout the beta and for a set of customers even earlier. I think our enterprise customers have been well-represented and of course have the opportunity to use the beta as well.

We work with the OEMs continuously. Our OEM partners have had builds of Windows for months now and receive updates at a very high rate. Our hope is that they are testing Windows 7 with their existing PC images and new images (and new PCs) right away so we are all ready at the Release Candidate step for final validation.

@steve.thresher — send me some additional information or use the send feedback button. What software, which tooltip?

I am not windows fanboi but personally i haven’t been this excited about a Windows OS Since NT 5 renamed to windows 2000 ;-). I have liked everything i have seen so far my favorite is the default install with little to no tweaking has a 560mb memory foot print with antivirus and defender isntalled. This will be my households next OS upgrade currently XP and vista 32-bit. The only thing i saw that was discouraging was it seems they are Keeping the inane Ultimate/home/Home premium/ etc.. marketing gimmick i felt this fell flat on its face with Vista basically there was really no compelling reason to pay the extra chunk of change for Ultimate.

Free marketing advice for Microsoft avoid the confussion and realease monolithic Windows 7 as a base OS then sell downloadable enablement features i.e. Windows 7 + business features = Windows 7 business enabled or Windows 7 enabled for home etc..

I’ve been testing W7 for a week now, and I’m very happy with it. No crashes at all, very fast, faster even I think than the XP x64 system I used before.

I however have a weird issue : I usually don’t shut down my system, but put it into hibernation instead. And here with W7 when I do that the PC shuts down as it should, but when I come back a few hours later it’s back on, with the login screen. Looks like it somehow wakes up all by itself. It only happens with hibernation, not with a normal shutdown.

This is the first serious negative publicity I have seen about Windows 7 in the blogsphere.

As you are well aware of the phenomenon, somebody discovers a (here, valid) issue, and bloggers pick it up. People are writing posts, voicing opinions and microsoft is being shown in the bad light here.

This was one thing that contributed in killing Vista…. people never gave it a fair chance.

I have created my own tooltip shell extension (implemented class derived from IPersistFile and IQueryInfo) that is registered against all file types (HKCR\*\shellx\{00021500-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}). The implementation of IQueryInfo::GetInfoTip() is as follows:

HRESULT CTestTooltip::GetInfoTip(DWORD dwFlags,LPWSTR* ppwszTip)

{

(VOID)dwFlags;

const LPSTR szMsg="Test t Message";

// Get an IMalloc interface from the shell.

LPMALLOC pMalloc;

if (FAILED(SHGetMalloc(&pMalloc)))

return(E_FAIL);

// Allocate a buffer for Explorer. Note that the must pass the string

// back as a Unicode string, so the string length is multiplied by the

A software repository that can dip into Windows updates AND show updates to existing installed non-Microsoft programs.

Right now Windows only updates itself through Windows Update and we have to rely on 3rd party setups such as filehippo.com Update Checker to see if there are newer software updates available for our programs. I am requesting something along the lines of the Ubuntu Linux Synaptic Software Updater, or using KDE, Adept Software Updater.

I would hope that Microsoft is working with a 3rd party partner to somehow put together a Windows Repository where Windows Updates and non-Microsoft software can release their software and updates in one place for all the updates needed. The filehippo.com website has it right but unfortunately Vista and W7 automatically stops the program from starting up thus does not allow it to check for software updates. Even if you try to manually run it, DEP blocks it.

I had the same thing the last two nights and was going to post on that. Yes, the computer (franken-puter) (Win 7 x64) seems to come out of sleep/hibernation itself and this is the second time in two nights.

Secondly i’m not sure if you get this problem, but whenever it comes out of hibernation (either by me or franken-puter by itself) my audio doesn’t seem to work at all and I have to restart my computer. This happens anytime the computer goes to sleep/hibernate. I commented about this yesterday here.

One last thing… I was out spreading the word playing World of Warcraft (I play every once in a while) by saying "Windows 7 and WoW were meant to be together" and after the third time I said it I got a BSOD. Not sure about the irony here… I did laugh though. 🙂

I haven’t had it happen since but then I only played for 2 hours. It ask to send a report so not sure if it sent the BSOD information to the team.

I’d like to hear more about WARP, Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform, which would be very interresting to hear about from an engineering perspective as you have not talked about it yet and as far as I know it is not yet included in the beta that is features complete?

as I’m working as non-admin (yep, I’m not talking about (admin && uac) but (not admin) && uac) I really like UAC. It’s the best thing that could happen to me.

But although I’m not affected by the UAC flaw described on several blogs I would really like to see it fixed as in my opinion it’s clearly a problem. Set the bar for attackers high! Please don’t just insist on "something else has already been breached" – better two fences than one!

Do you remember the flaw of the speech recognition in Vista? It was that an attacker could somehow play an audio file and have the computer execute the commands that were played through the speakers and accepted by the mic when SR was turned on. Microsoft confirmed that flaw although it also required another thing to be breached before.

So why not fix the UAC issue by always requiring elevation when UAC settings are to be changed?

Steve please read what the author has to say and the comments too. This is really disappointing.

It’s so sad to see that the same confusing mistake that was made with the release of Vista is being made with Windows 7 too. Just drop the price of Home premium and Ultimate editions in poor countries rather than selling useless Home basic and starter editions, Linux is free. SO what’s the use of these versions? If it’s very cheap, rather than using pirated copies, they will simply purchase it. The something was being done to GTA 4, it was being sold in India for less than $25.

looking at the Beta (and looking forward to the RC) in my opinion the biggest problem besides the bugs, errors etc. is visualisation, style, or whatever you’d like to call it.

The taskbar is a big example: what’s an icon?, what’s an open window?, where are several windows open?, how many of them? and so on. It’s not impossible to visualize this: black and white icons for shortcuts, making the bar 3d like the dock in mac leopard to have more space and possibilities to visualize how many windows are opened etc.

Another example is Explorer: Why isn’t there a proper preview functionality? Why has the navigation pane the same background color as the content field? Why isn’t there a visual connection between the folder in the navigation pane and the content of the folder (like in Gmail)? And so on.

This "problem" can also be seen in small details: no visual connection between the systray volume icon and the opened volume bar.

Or also how Seven deals with Gadgets. No new visual idea that replaces the sidebar.

Or take Windows Media Player in Libary Mode: Not only is it not consistent with the rest of Seven but it also is less stylish than the Zune Software, iTunes or Windows Media Center.

my impression is that windows is a great product as far as technology, ideas, concepts, inovations, etc. is concerned but lacks in … let’s say presentation.

Is all bad? NO! Aero Snaps? Great! Show Desktop? Super! The Boot Up Animation? Cool! Jump List in Start Menu? Good! The preview thumbnails in the taskbar? Annoyingly slow but nice! Desktop Wallpaper Slide Show? Good but where are Dreamscenes?

I installed the beta of Win7 and it seems pretty damn good – worth upgrading from XP even.

And then I read that MS is planning on releasing at least SIX different versions of Win7. Seriously? Have you guys learnt nothing at all from the Vista debacle? My god it beggars belief. Way to go to piss off pretty much every PC user in the world. Why on earth isn’t there just one version of Win7? or 2 at a stretch?

If I did understand correctly there are only 2 version that are relevant for ordinary users: Home Premium and Professional. If you are a Business customer with a volume licence you get a Business Edition, poor countries get special stripped down edition and Ultimate is only for special offers like a promotion for something.

All the driver’s on my system are current 64 bit drivers from every manufacturer including Microsoft. The explorer does hang in several places. I’ve notice sometimes the all programs menu can hang and slow down. I’ve especially noticed it specifically in the games folder in the all programs menu. Internet Explorer 8 frequently hangs and crashes. It does need a lot of work.

I also disagree with you about past systems. Many of these systems are still very relevant and can be upgraded to run Windows 7 decently. My brother’s an IT certified professional and is currently running Windows 7 on a XP machine using 2003 hardware. It runs just fine and proves we can keep these machines running for one more era and dump support in the next version of Windows. Back in 2003, I saw running Windows 3.11 machines, so with good care and support, its possible to keep legacy machines running.

In General:

I must say that I’m not happy with the multi-sku’s. I think there are way too many. Yes, I am aware the U.S. retail versions will be Home Premium, Professional, and an Ultimate Upgrade. However, from many reports I’ve read, NOBODY likes the Starter Edition in 3rd world contries. Its highly unpopular. Who wants an edition limited to launching 3 programs at a time? Thats a horrible decision making.

I’d highly recommend to Microsoft to elimate Starter Edition. Go with Home Basic for emerging markets and netbooks. I’d also recommend that Microsoft eliminate the Enterprise Version and have Professional with volume licencing. Ultimate should be in the stores and available.

I also believe Microsoft shouldn’t limit advanced full back up in Home Premium. Home users need to back up and frequently they don’t. This is a habit that needs to be instilled in home users. Taking Domain Join and EFS, is something I could see home users using if they were educated on it.

Also limiting BitLocker, Applocker, & MUI language packs in Professional could be a mistake. In my household, Spanish and English are common. It is nice to be able to translate between languages.

I’d also recommend Microsoft follow suit with 2 licences like One Care Live and Office Home And Student edition. Every one I know has a desktop and a notebook. It would help families struggling in the current economic crisis.

Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, meanwhile, won’t be sold directly to consumers. Instead, Windows 7 Ultimate will be an upgrade offered only as an add-on, which also means that consumers will be forced to pay for Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional, and then pay again for the upgrade. However, Microsoft will roll out all of the versions on a single disc, allowing users the choice of either buying offline media or applying for an online upgrade key that will unlock the additional capabilities.

"Ultimate combines all of the features of Windows 7 Home Premium plus provides access to all of the Enterprise features including BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, BranchCache, DirectAccess (accessing a corporate network without Remote Access Server installed), MUI, etc.," Microsoft said. BitLocker and AppLocker lock down data and applications, respectively.

Pro edition of Windows 7 should include BitLocker and every versions of Windows must have support for boot from VHD. Too bad Microsoft still doesn’t get it.

The main reasons to upgrade to Windows 7 is because of features like BitLocker, AppLocker, boot from VHD etc, just got messed up and harder. And since many businesses will be buying pro edition via retail market and those features won’t be available. So we would have to pay more money and then upgrade for those features as opposed to going for enterprise edition…that really sucks

Microsoft should drop Pro edition and replace it with ultimate edition. Why pay more for features like BitLocker, boot from VHD etc and then upgrade just to use those features? It’s gonna be a night mare for consumers. By default those great features will only be available in enterprise edition (VL). Mistake!!

I looked at the comments of all users in the various forums and sites where it was posted the SKU news , initially people were a little confused,

but the feedback essential to the happiness of many User is the merger of Ultimate with Professional or add more features in Professional Edition.

And then I do not want to see another time CEO of a competition climb on stage and say th Windows 7 has a high price and Snow Leopard $ 129 (even if it does not say that the hardware costs 4 times more expensive 😀 )

Could not install Windows 7 Beta, the install was abnormally slow, it took hours, as others have reported, please fix this before release! My computer is a Core i7 965 with 6GBs of Ram and 2.15TBs of storage.

I think the new taskbar is awesome however the way to launch another instance of a running application from the taskbar is not very discoverable. I suggest, and I hope someone is listning, is to add a double click functionality wherein the user double clicks the taskbar button of the open application to launch a new window.

I like the jumplist and I use the shift+click combination to launch a new window but when I sit down normal people to try Windows 7 the first thing they ask after opening an application from the taskbar is, "So, how do I open another window from the taskbar with no Quick Launch?" I let them try first and they usually try to double click the running app’s taskbar button.

It just makes sense to Windows Users because we are used to double clicking icons on the desktop to open an application.

Please someone pay attention to this. This is important as it will add the one last feature I believe the taskbar needs to perfectly merge Quicklaunch with the rest of the Taskbar.

Asesh> Indeed it would be great to have bitlocker and even vhd for the profesionnal edition. Be realistic though, Microsoft will never listen to its small customers and they will continue to push what marketing or head-architect think is right until business complain :P, it is also worth noting that most users won’t notice that they don’t have bitolocker as they most likely doesn’t even know it exist, it might just help them have a more secure environment but hey…

Personally I’m glad I’ll get the business edition from msdnaa, but for customers it’s really a shame to miss on these great features though.

Why is there even more than one edition of Windows 7? No other operating system comes in such a bizarre bevvy of different versions. People say one for consumers and one for professionals should be the limit, but why even that? There is absolutely no reason other than the greed of the Microsoft bean counters for this move. If you don’t need certain features in your day to day use of an operating system, then just don’t use them. Once again MS could have shown they can move with the times and provide a serious challenge to the upcoming MacOSX and Linux variants, but instead decided to take the short-term vision and grab as much cash whilst they still can.

I am yet to meet anyone who genuinely thinks it’s a good idea to have multiple versions of the same operating system, and i have a sneaking suspicion that no-one on the actual Windows engineering team wants them either. We got by just fine for years right up until XP appeared in 2 pointless versions.

"We got by just fine for years right up until XP appeared in 2 pointless versions."

That’s because the consumer and business versions of Windows used separate kernels before Win XP. Consumers uses the Win 9x series and businesses used the Win NT series. Win XP was when Microsoft moved to a common kernel.

did you even read my original post? yes i do want to have all the features. why on earth is that unreasonable? every other desktop OS comes in one version, as did windows before the marketeers got greedy. until anyone gives me a decent reason why this shouldn’t be the case with windows now then why should i think otherwise?

if microsoft want me to buy and use their operating system over an alternative then they can start by not making me feel like i’m being fleeced before i even install it.

The fact that, someone in Microsoft (in fact many someones, be they in marketing or finance) thinks that its appropriate to offer a Basic Edition which only allows 3 programs to run, because thats’ in the 3rd World or on lesser capable hardware (which probably isn’t even capable of running more than 3 programs simultaneously anyway) shows IN SPADES that MS still just do not get it. Its just completely unnecessary to have more than 2 versions. Once again, MS is completely and utterly TONE DEAF. It seems you have to yell and scream so loud to get them to listen, its amazing. There are good reasons to have Business-only features in the software because they have needs that Consumers don’t. But, virtually everything in the OS should be configurable in a way that any module can either be installed or not. If your PC doesn’t have the disk space, then simply put, you may not be able to have all the features/modules installed. If installing a media player when the hardware doesn’t have the power for it gives a crap experience, then users will understand what hardware they need to have. PC vendors will have to be honest and speel out whether their hardware can in fact run the new feature acceptably. But, it should be the users choice to try having been warned its liekly to be futile. You’ll either be given a DVD with the code, or can download it from the Web. Its not hard, folks. But marketing people think we’re all dumb and will fall for this crap. The world is full of them. Wanna buy a car without a radio or moonroof? Good luck with that. Some marketing guy decided it was going to be in the ‘first tier’ package of options, and yes, there’s am $800 charge. That package includes the alloy wheels which you do want. Its called bundling, and its designed to make you pay for features you don’t want. Cable TV without the religious channels? Sorry, we just can’t do it. No interest in Home & Garden TV? Tough, you’re getting it because we’ve got some sponsor stuff we want to hawk at you. This is marketing folks, and theres thousands of drones been taught to do this stuff to you because its what they want, not what you want. Its rampant. But the first folks along who decide they aren’t going to do any of that stuff will make a killing. It just needs someone brave or prescient enough to do it. Where’s that person at Microsoft who’s going to stand up for this? Steve Sinofsky, why isn’t it you?

I am going to reiterate this point… Microsoft better get this right… Windows 7 better hit the mark! And, I only see one way that happens… "Componentized Windows"!

From a corporate perspective Windows is Windows… Security and performance will be key, as always, but in this day and age Microsoft better keep its eye on the future. Thin clients, web only PC’s, hand-held devices, and web based computing are not future considerations they are changing the way we do business today! Even Microsoft is selling the idea of cloud computing with AZURE, and professing “Life without walls”. If I live life without walls why do I need Windows?

I’ve posted this before, but Windows 7 should be “ONE Windows”! Windows should be a core set of functionalities for any device, to which you can layer as much or as little as you wish (an object based approach would be a novel idea). I should be able to install Windows 7 on a 256 MB USB keychain drive (like WinPE) if I wish. This is my utility OS (command prompt only) for deployment, recovery, etc. I should then be able to add a simple management GUI, like Windows Explorer, or some other custom shell if I so choose (It would need to support .NET and CLR). This could then give me a very simple KIOSK type feature set. I could even use Internet Explorer as my one and only shell application giving me a web device (I would need to be able to plug in stuff like acrobat, flash, silverlight, etc). This would be a slick read-only OS design. No need to worry about downloading crap that messes things up, you simply reboot and you are clean again (great for the old folks who do the same things day in and day out)! Finally, any of these builds could be 32, 64 or 128 bit (when we get that far). In addition, this image could boot from any device, USB, CD, DVD, or even a TFTP type server for a network bootable image. Combine this with Windows Deployment Services and you have the start of something entirely new.

What I need in a modern OS Windows 7 looks like it won’t be giving me. I need something sleek, customizable, able to support multiple security scenarios, multiple devices, and be able to adapt to any new environmental issues that arise… slim, securable scripting is another key… It would allow me to automate environmental changes at will. Powershell is not what I had in mind… A built in OS script language that will bypass security if I choose. Windows Scripting Host was fine, all-be-it not very robust, but it did what I needed it to do. All I needed was an integrated way to securing my scripts, sign them, and run only the scripts that I wanted, not any script from anywhere. Why do we insist on making things BIGGER, FASTER and GRANDIOS… Why not think smaller, faster, simpler… Mark my words, Windows 7 will only get mild reviews, and go down the same road as Vista if it goes anywhere that is NOT componentized Windows. Everyone is asking for ONE Windows… This model satisfies that as well as most other corporate complaints that I know of. It also delivers a Windows that can be truly “Built On”. OS image building could be a simple interface that downloads and combines the features that I want onto Base Windows 7. Then commit the changes to an ISO, boot it up into a virtual workspace for testing, and deploy what I built any way I wish… WDS, CD, bootable USB…

In this model, Windows could be FREE! No more licensing and messing up my operating system because I changed out some piece of hardware… Windows 7 could incorporate a new licensing model. Windows Security features, domain and networking features, AD integration features, etc, etc… all of these would be pay-for-use features. What a great model… I only pay for the features I want… Imagine if Microsoft led the way to a new corporate mindset… Pay for use, not “Buy my whole bag of SH*&” and make it work… Perhaps then we could talk Cable, DirecTV and Dish Network, into giving us the same model… Life would be so much easier…

So I’ve been using Windows 7 for a while now and seems to be running quite smoothly. However, the last few days I’ve been using the Windows Explorer more to navigate, zip, and unzip files.

1) As for ziping and unziping, it TAKES A LONG TIME and I have a 10k rpm drive, quad core cpu 8 gb ram. It is faster to do it on a 6 year old computer with XP to zip and extract files. This better be fixed in the RC as it is quite annoying and a waste of MY TIME as a developer. Some days I feel like I have aged 10 years waiting for a 30 mb file to unzip.

2) Windows Explorer NEEDS, MUST HAVE, ESSENTIALLY REQUIRE, the "Up" button to navigate to the parent directory. I like the breadcrumbs and I use it, however when I get to some directories it doesn’t show the parent directory and I have to click the "<<" and then choose the parent directory. MS YOU JUST ADDED AN EXTRA CLICK! Yes you can use the [Alt] + [Up] button but that takes my hand off of the mouse! Whoever thought this was efficent was a numb-skull.

I’m a little irritated still about this. So sorry if this is strong. I probably wasted several hours yesterday of my time on these two issues.

I have read that Windows 7 will have 5 editions. Being someone that supports PCs for a living for a SaaS ASP having so many editions causes confusion for many users and allows for hardware vendors to use the lowest edition of the OS on decent spec hardware so they can lower the price but then the user does not have all of the functionality / features they need or want (in some cases) on that PC.

How come there can’t be ONLY one edition of the Windows OS for a PC and one for a Server that has everything in it?

That way if a user wants the extra functionality / features it is there and they will access it. If they don’t it won’t really take up much disk space at all and won’t hurt anything. They won’t even know that it is there. There could be one fair price for Windows and you would be good to go.

Is it a money thing – the hardware vendors want options for an economic route as they have with CPU chips so they can sell a not so up-to-date computer for a real low price? Is there really much money being made to justify the splitting up of the feature sets into different versions?

It would just be so much simpler to have 1 version for the user at a decent price and one version for the server at a decent price.

Thanks for your time! From what I have read and seen Windows 7 looks to be a great OS!!!! nice improvements!!!! – Nice Job!!!!

I am a "just the facts" kinda’ guy and from that, would like to solely request that "details view" be at least restored to the integrity it was with XP, and optimally, improved. That is to say, restore "details view" to where changes to the folder columns are remembered.

If you want to add something to the OS, skip the fuzzy buttons, 3-D folder icons, and moving all the controls around to where I can’t find them. Instead, give me some type of way to create templates to apply to my various folders of different file types, then ensure the settings are remembered until the day I decide to change them. Also, let me change the template and have that template change applied to each folder that used that template.

I don’t really care about any of the other changes and in fact I despise changes that are made just to make things look new to justify a sale’s price, when in reality there is no provable reason for doing it.

I keep hoping with every iteration of a Vista fix that I get my "details view" restored to what I have enjoyed in XP. I, like others would pay almost any price to ditch Vista but my Toshiba laptop support refuses to supply XP drivers (only machine of 8 home computers where I have been forced to move to Vista).

well its about time that microsoft will considerate to let users to disable or enable anything we want without a hack or searching for a solutions for hours on the net. i get disk fail on startup and i have no idea how to disable it and more unwanted errors that cannot be disabled in a simple way.

i hope microsoft will take under consideration to let us an option on any flying window to disable view it in the future or not.

Well first of all many thanks and congratulations to windows 7 Team! 🙂 but my wondering is why windows 7 dont have still UI mainly change, I mean in vista development theres so much changes every build i guess so. I’m not saying that Windows 7 current UI are ugly but i hope your understand what im pointing, windows 7 right now is really look like vista? with some other changes, I really hope You could bring back the Windows Codenamed "LONGHORN" User interface to us Thanks! 🙂

I’m looking forward with great anticipation for the RC download. I am currently running beta build 7000 for my Home Media Center and apart from an initial slow media library build I have been very impressed so much so my Vista boot hasn’t been used once since my win7 install.

I mean in vista development theres so much changes every build i guess so. I’m not saying that Windows 7 current UI are ugly but i hope your understand what im pointing, windows 7 right now is really look like vista? with some other changes, I really hope You could bring back the Windows Codenamed "LONGHORN" User interface to us Thanks! 🙂

Being someone that supports PCs for a living for a SaaS ASP having so many editions causes confusion for many users and allows for hardware vendors to use the lowest edition of the OS on decent spec hardware so they can lower the price but then the user does not have all of the functionality / features they need or want (in some cases) on that PC.

Why pay more for features like BitLocker, boot from VHD etc and then upgrade just to use those features? It’s gonna be a night mare for consumers. By default those great features will only be available in enterprise edition (VL). Mistake!!

As for performance, I think Microsoft is going to surprise people. And if you’re working for an enterprise that hasn’t upgraded to Vista because it won’t run acceptably on your existing PCs, you’ll want to look again at Windows 7

Microsoft is still the undisputed king when it comes to operating systems. MS Windows Series managed to won the hearts of billions around the world. This success is due to the untiring efforts of the Microsoft team.

I HATE Winbdows 7. All you have done is put things in illogical places, and in DIFFERENT places in all different areas. How about returning to the continuity of earlier versions? If you did not have any great improvements, rearranging the furniture is hardly a great leap forward.

Word WAS so well organized before! HOW CAN YOU HAVE MADE SUCH A MESS OF IT? For 2 cents I’d throw it away, but I am held captive as I need SOMETHING with which to write.

I am livid with MW7 Word! And all of your vexing advertisements stating "It was my idea!" do not make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Nancy Nelson New Prague,MN

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